NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover Panorama Collection | Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Panorama 1: Curiosity Looks Downslope from the Sulfate Unit
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view looking back down at the floor of Gale Crater from its location on Mount Sharp on Feb. 7, 2025, the 4,447th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Curiosity was continuing its climb through a region of the mountain called the sulfate-bearing unit.
Mount Sharp is a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain made up of a number of layers, all formed in different eras of Martian history. By studying each layer, the rover's team can learn more about how the Martian environment changed over time from a warmer, wetter, and more Earthlike world to the freezing desert it is today.
The mountain is inside of Gale Crater, formed by an ancient asteroid impact. What appears to be a mountain range in the distance of this scene is in fact the crater's rim.
The color in these images has been adjusted to match the lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.
Panorama 2: Curiosity Surveys the 'Ubajara' Sampling Site
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this 360-degree panorama at a site nicknamed "Ubajara" on April 30, 2023, the 3,815th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Taken by the rover's Mastcam, this panorama was stitched together from 141 images after they were sent to Earth. Dark rover tracks recede into the distance in the center of the scene.
Curiosity used the drill on the end of its robotic arm to take a sample from Ubajara, then dropped the pulverized rock into instruments within the rover's body. One of those instruments, called CheMin (Chemistry & Mineralogy), used X-ray diffraction to discover the presence of an iron carbonate mineral called siderite in samples from this site and two others: one above and one below Ubajara in a region enriched with salty minerals called sulfates.
The discovery of siderite may help solve one of Mars' mysteries: There is strong evidence that liquid water coursed over the planet's surface billions of years ago, suggesting Mars had a thick, carbon-rich atmosphere rather than the wispy one it has today (a thicker carbon dioxide atmosphere is required to provide enough pressure and warmth for water to remain liquid on a planet's surface; otherwise, it rapidly vaporizes or freezes—which is the case on Mars today).
That carbon dioxide and water should have reacted with Martian rocks to create carbonate minerals. However, when scientists study the planet with satellites that ample carbonate has not been apparent—even at Curiosity's site.
It is possible that other minerals may be masking carbonate from satellite near-infrared analysis, particularly in sulfate-rich areas. If other such layers across Mars also contain hidden carbonates, the amount of stored carbon dioxide would be part of that needed in the ancient atmosphere to create conditions warm enough to support liquid water. The rest could be hidden in other deposits or have been lost to space over time.
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used its Mast Camera, or Mastcam, to capture this panorama in morning light on March 9, 2025, the 4,476th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. Steep hills on the left side of the panorama enclose wind-carved valleys on Mount Sharp, the mountain that Curiosity has been climbing for over a decade. Broken-up, rounded rocks throughout the foreground are part of the mountain's sulfate-bearing unit.
The butte in the distance at right is nicknamed "Gould Mesa." A band of cliffs and dark ridges near the top of the butte may be the first glimpses of boxwork formations, a kind of feature created by groundwater flowing through large bedrock fractures in the ancient past. Assuming that is how they formed, these could represent the last gasps of water found on this region of Mars before the planet dried out completely.
Before now, these features had only been viewed from orbiting spacecraft, to which they appeared as spiderweb-like fractures. This pattern of fractures stretches as long as 6 to 12 miles (10 to 20 kilometers) across the side of Mount Sharp. The rover's team expects to study these formations up close throughout the rest of 2025.
The color in this image has been adjusted to match lighting conditions as the human eye would see them on Earth.
Release Dates: April 17-24, 2025
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